Dear Neighbor, 

Happy New Year!

As we begin 2024, I wanted to take a quick look back on a few of the City’s biggest accomplishments in 2023:

• I issued an executive order directing special action to streamline affordable housing projects in San Diego, and City staff created Affordable Housing Permit Now, a program designed to provide greater speed and efficiency in permitting and provide enhanced customer service to applicants seeking to build affordable homes

• We secured passage of Housing Action Package 2.0, my latest package of policy reforms aimed at building new housing that San Diegans can afford. 

• We budgeted the biggest investment in roads in City of San Diego history, allocating nearly $140 million to street repair/resurfacing — the most the City as invested in any given year.

• An executive order I issued last year directed greater law enforcement and legislative action to address the proliferation of illicit fentanyl, which has led to a 53% increase of fentanyl-related arrests in the city of San Diego.

• Last fiscal year, the City secured 97 grants totaling over $306 million, which is the highest dollar amount ever recorded since the City started publishing an annual grant report

• We worked with more than 15,000 community members who contacted the Mayor’s office seeking assistance, information and other help from the City. 

• We invested directly in five affordable housing projects that are proposing to create a total of 400 new affordable homes across San Diego.

• Created the Budget Equity Framework to deploy an equity lens when evaluating City budgets and budget adjustment requests.

• We hosted or attended more than 600 community meetings and community events in neighborhoods across San Diego.

• City Councilmember Stephen Whitburn and I secured passage of our Unsafe Camping Ordinance, a new law prohibiting homeless encampments in public spaces.

• We established the Safe Sleeping Program and opened two new sites that offer safe, legal camping space as an alternative to traditional congregate shelters for people experiencing homelessness.

• We opened a new family shelter in Barrio Logan that  is now housing about 40 families who are getting onsite supportive services as they work toward moving into permanent homes.

• The California Big City Mayors, a bipartisan coalition that I chair made up of Mayors of the states 13 most populous cities, pushed hard for the passage of Senate Bill 43, legislation by state Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) that will modernize California’s mental health system and make it easier for severely mentally ill people the help they need. 

• Council President Sean Elo-Rivera and I secured passage of our Tenant Protections Ordinance to Prevent Displacement and Homelessness, which provides a high level of protection from evictions for renters to stay in their homes if they are paying their rent and complying with the terms of their lease.

These are just a few of the highest impact policy accomplishments last year. I look forward to working hard to get even more things done for more San Diegans in 2024.  

As always, it’s an honor to serve as your Mayor. 

Advancing Social Equity as a Core Principle at the City of San Diego

The City has officially launched our Race and Equity Academy training. 

Kim Desmond, the City's first-ever Chief Officer of Race and Equity, is leading trainings with City employees and officials to bring increased equity to all of our City’s programs, services, processes and budget decisions. 

The trainings, which will be offered both in-person and online, will be provided to all 12,000 City employees, and they include readings, videos, and podcasts that offer a foundational understanding on the history of racism in the United States, racial bias, different types of systemic inequity, and next steps to address inequity in the workplace. 

Alongside these new trainings, the City is incorporating equity in everything we do. Here’s a look at just a few of the equity actions we’ve taken so far: 

• Created the Office of Race and Equity to address all forms of disparities experienced by individuals in San Diego and to intentionally create a culture of inclusivity by advancing equitable outcomes; dismantling policies, procedures and budget decisions that perpetuate inequity and systemic racism

• Hosted Budget Equity/Tactical Equity Plan training designed to determine whether budget allocations advance equitable outcomes for residents for more than 90 City employees from various departments where participants were given an overview of equity with a focus on implicit bias and how it can drive the decision-making process

• Launched Blueprint SD, a proactive effort to create an equitable and sustainable framework for growth to support current and future San Diegans using the best available data to identify areas for more homes and jobs that are connected to convenient and affordable options to walk, bike, and ride transit to meet daily needs 

• Secured adoption of policy updates to ensure infrastructure is constructed to best meet people’s needs and improves their lives and also works to get more people involved and engaged in helping the City learn about infrastructure priorities and equitably prioritize projects

• Funded the City’s first Cannabis Equity assessment, paving the way for a cannabis equity program to ensure that the City is ridding the local cannabis industry of institutional racism and systemic disparities 

•Helped secure a State grant for more than $880,000 to support residents seeking to enter the legal cannabis industry in San Diego through funding to cover permit and license fees and associated start-up property costs while providing access to the cannabis industry workforce 

• Took action to close the digital divide by launching a major expansion of the SD Access 4 All program with free Wi-Fi at over 300 new locations 

• Created Summer for All of Us, an initiative that invested in workforce development, library programs and youth programming in underserved areas throughout San Diego 

• Actively addressing environmental justice and social equity through a new Climate Equity Fund, which has allocated $25 million to fund climate justice and resilience projects in Communities of Concern thus far 

• Commissioned a disparity study to assess whether minority-, woman- and disabled veteran-owned businesses face any barriers as part of the City of San Diego’s contracting processes, then implemented recommendations and changes based on the data to ensure equity when doing business with the City of San Diego 

There is no singular policy or approach that we can follow to dismantle the history of racism in City of San Diego and the United States; but I am dedicated to reimagining what equitable systems look like in San Diego.

City Clears East Village Encampments, Moves Residents Off Street into Housing and Shelter 

The City of San Diego is putting state funding to work to get people out of encampments and on the path to housing. 

We used state grant funding to address longstanding homeless encampments in a heavily impacted part of East Village, doing extensive outreach to those living in the unsafe and unsanitary living conditions and getting them connected to services and housing.  

The City’s Homelessness Strategies and Solutions Department (HSSD) was awarded $2.45 million in October 2022 from the California Interagency Council on Homelessness’ Encampment Resolution Funding (ERF) Grant Program for their proposed E Street Encampment Project. California has so far removed over 5,600 encampments thanks to this innovative state funding program.

In San Diego, our E Street project focused on a string of encampments along the blocks surrounding the U.S. Post office and old Downtown Central Library, from Broadway to F Street and Seventh to 10th Avenues in East Village. The project ultimately identified a consistent unsheltered community of 76 people experiencing homelessness consistently encamped in this area. 

HSSD contracted with nonprofit organizations NAMI San Diego and Healthcare in Action to conduct intensive outreach efforts, cultivate relationships with unsheltered residents in the area and offer services such as case management, health education, public benefits, mental health and substance abuse treatment, primary care referrals and access to hygiene kits, transportation and basic essentials.   

Outreach workers identified and worked with a total of 126 people encamped in the target area during the course of the program, successfully connecting 19 to housing and placing 71 into shelter or the City’s Safe Sleeping program, where case workers are helping them access housing. Two of those in encampments were reconnected with family through the Downtown San Diego Partnership’s Family Reunification Program, two entered institutional settings, and three people carried out plans to move out of San Diego. 

The East Village project is the first of three in the city of San Diego that will get people out of encampments and on the path to housing thanks to the state Encampment Resolution Funding Grant Program. 

Read more about how San Diego is putting state funding to work on Inside San Diego.  

Hourly Minimum Wage Increase in 2024, Plus Other New Laws in the New Year

Many San Diegans will see an increase in their pay starting this week, when the City’s minimum wage goes up.

As of Jan. 1, employees who perform at least two hours of work in one or more calendar weeks of the year within the geographic boundaries of the City of San Diego will receive a minimum wage increase from $16.30 to $16.85 an hour. The change is in accordance with the City’s Earned Sick Leave and Minimum Wage Ordinance, approved in 2016. 

Increasing the minimum wage in San Diego is essential to ensure that workers can afford necessities like food, housing and healthcare. This puts more money in people’s pockets, which ultimately boosts our local economy.

Here are a few other new laws that will go into effect in California in 2024: 

Paid Sick Leave: Senate Bill 616 will require a qualifying employee to have no less than 40 hours or five days of accrued sick leave or paid time off by the 200th calendar day of employment, or in each 12-month period. The new law will go into effect Jan. 1.

Security deposit cap: Under Assembly Bill 12, landlords in California are limited to asking for the equivalent of one month’s rent for a security deposit. The new law kicks in on July 1, 2024. 

Campsite Reservations: Assembly Bill 618 imposes fees on state campsite reservation holders who cancel within two to six days of their stays.

Historic Mental Health Transformation: Last year, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill 326 modernizing the Mental Health Services Act, and Assembly Bill 531 a $6.38 Billion bond to build new behavioral health housing and treatment settings across the state. Californians will vote on this package, collectively known as Proposition 1, on the March 2024 ballot.

Read more about new laws taking effect in 2024 on NBC. 

Piers Closed Due to High Surf and Safety 

The Ocean Beach Pier will remain closed to the public after sustaining significant structural damage from high surf over the past week.

The City has also closed public access to Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach due to the high surf and public safety concerns. That pier will remain closed until high surf conditions have subsided and damage can be assessed to determine whether repairs are needed.

The Ocean Beach Pier was closed in 2023 from January to July, reopening just in time for its 57th anniversary in July. Mother Nature made the reopening short-lived, as the pier had to be closed again in October due to damage caused by high surf. Now, the pier will remain closed as the City waits for the storm season to pass before reassessing the damage.

Based on a 2018 study of the OB Pier, the City determined the best path forward is to replace the pier. As part of the Ocean Beach Pier Renewal project, we hosted community workshops to get input from San Diegans on what they want to see as a potential replacement.

During these meetings, engineering and architectural consultants unveiled three preliminary design concepts of what a new pier could look like: The Squint Test, The Remora and The Braid.

Each concept features ideas for specific amenities previously prioritized by community members, including how the pier meets the land, on-pier viewing areas and public gathering spaces. San Diegans were encouraged to take an online survey to let the team know their likes and dislikes for each design concept. Results from that survey will help shape the preferred design, which we expect to present to the public in the next few months.

If you would like to learn more about the different design concepts, visit OBPierRenewal.com. 

Fixing Hundreds of Sidewalk Problems Across Southeastern San Diego 

Our Transportation Department has started work on a large-scale sidewalk replacement project in Logan Heights, City Heights and other Southeastern San Diego communities. 

A contractor will be removing and replacing 478 locations of damaged sidewalk, many of which were broken by tree roots. 

Work will include root removal, curb and gutter replacement, bringing sidewalks up to accessibility standards, tree planting, installation of root barriers, and more.

Residents and visitors use over 4,500 miles of sidewalks across the city. The Transportation Department is responsible for the cost of maintaining sidewalks fronting City-owned property or damage caused by heat expansion, City utility work, grade subsidence and trees within the public right-of-way. 

Normal sidewalk wear and tear and damage caused by private trees are the responsibility of property owners, who can take advantage of the City's new Safe Sidewalks Program to help offset the cost of repairs.